Guests
by Gin, December 31, 2013 5:31 PM
Allie Brosh has won the Internet. Including new material along with some of her most popular blog postings, Hyperbole and a Half is extraordinary. Brosh's book is hilarious throughout and, with the most accurate description of depression that I have ever encountered, very moving. Could it be said that Hyperbole and a Half is borken? No, is not borken IS GREAT BOOK
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Guests
by Gin, December 29, 2012 12:00 AM
This year marked the centenary of the birth of Alan Mathison Turing; among the many, many commemorative events that occurred during the Alan Turing Year were the reissues of two biographies of AMT. One was Andrew Hodges's extraordinary work Alan Turing: The Enigma. The other was Sara Turing's long-unavailable book about her son, simply titled Alan M. Turing, which was originally published a few years after AMT's suicide in 1954. New material by Martin Davis and a contemporaneous (and disturbingly homophobic) memoir by AMT's brother John included here further illuminate our understanding of a brilliant man horribly mistreated on account of his homosexuality and to whom we all owe a great
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Guests
by Gin, August 26, 2011 3:43 PM
Though rated by the Sunday Times (London) as the 10th greatest British writer since 1945, Angela Carter (1940-1992) is not nearly as well-known on this side of the pond. The Bloody Chamber is an excellent introduction to her work. A collection of short stories based on various fairy and folk tales, this book is a heady, demanding, and lively read that can sometimes shock. Every sentence can be compared to some perfectly ripe ? if at times dark ? fruit... like, say, an apple. Pick this one up as a first course in the feast that is Carter's
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Guests
by Gin, March 23, 2009 4:30 PM
One of the great classics of world literature, Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment is the story of Raskolnikov, a young man who — unable to complete his studies — commits what he calls "justifiable murder." What ensues is as demanding and illuminating for the reader as it is for the main character. If you're familiar with Dante's Divine Comedy then reading this book is an even more enriching
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Guests
by Gin, March 23, 2009 2:00 PM
The Algerian city of Oran is set upon by plague and sealed off from the rest of the world, its citizens imprisoned not only with the disease but also with each other. Or are they? By the novel's end, every character is profoundly changed by the necessities of survival... and the reader may be as
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Guests
by Gin, March 23, 2009 1:58 PM
Like much of his other work, Thomas Bernhard's The Loser has suicide at its core. Three men met and became friends while attending the Mozarteum in Vienna, and only one — the narrator — is still alive. The other two characters are a heavily fictionalized Glenn Gould (one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century) and the "loser" of the title, Wertheimer. Both the narrator and Wertheimer abandoned their art upon encountering Gould; Wertheimer ultimately commits suicide, and the narrator lives because he can't give up his obsession (unlike his piano) with Gould. Written as an unbroken interior monologue, The Loser is arguably as stunning as Gould's
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Guests
by Gin, December 9, 2008 9:50 AM
With this latest installment, it has become clear that Gregory Maguire's already politically subversive Wicked Years series is growing ever darker. A Lion among Men is devoted to (as you may have guessed) the story of the Cowardly Lion, known here as Brrr. His start in life was not a good one, and since then, he's met with abuse and indignity at the hands of humans, who are supposed to consider him an equal because he is an Animal (with a capital A), which means that he has all of the intellectual faculties, including literacy, that people do. In order to survive a government-sponsored purge of Animals, he takes Hobson's choice and "agrees" to service in this corrupt government, which is headed by the born-again Apostle Emperor. Hmm... that sounds like a familiar country, doesn't it? Maguire has once again produced a novel filled with fantasy, intrigue, and shadowy introspection with his singular combination of rich and piquant language.
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